First the NHL all but bent over so the first openly gay hockey player could sodomize the whole league. And then we had our first male openly homosexual player celebrated for issuing a statement that he likes it in the rear.

Me, I just wanted to watch sports. I didn’t want to get lectured about accepting, embracing and celebrating homosexuality.

I looked in vain through the rule books of all the major sports. There was NOTHING about that garbage in any of them.

But boy – as in “gay boys in bondage” – have professional sports ever changed since I was a kid.

My first thought when Jason Collins “came out” was that at least he didn’t play for any of the teams I root for (I couldn’t care less about the Washington Wizards and I utterly despise the Boston Celtics). But Kobe Bryant blew that up. The man who most represents the heart and the soul of the Los Angeles Lakers – my favorite team since Jerry West was a guard rather than the NBA logo – tweeted the following:

I suppose I’m supposed to forget that Bryant was once accused of rape. I suppose that I’m supposed to forget that he cheated on his wife and that he revealed his own latent homosexuality by sodomizing the woman he cheated on his wife with. And having forgotten all that I’m supposed to regard Kobe Bryant as a moral authority.

I mean, if the perp says I’m ignorant, then I’m clearly ignorant.

I wonder if Tiger Woods – whose behavior was recently endorsed by President Obama – has offered his own support of Collins’ homosexuality? You KNOW if he hasn’t the only reason is because his publicist advised him to stay on the down-low on this one.

Professional sports is now like Nazi Germany – the first culture to warp sports into depraved political statements celebrating warped ideologies – you just can’t get away from the crap they’re pimping.

CHRISTIANS are “flamboyant”??? Seriously? I mean, dang, if you even like to SAY the word “flamboyant” there’s a pretty good chance you’re a homosexual.

And in today’s culture, it is a no-no to talk about your Christian faith. You should keep embarrasing junk like that to yourself. But if you want to come out and tell the world you love to be sodomized by another man after sucking his weenie for him first, well, expect a call from the president of the United States congratulating you. And expect to be praised and celebrated by pretty much anybody who is anybody in today’s depraved culture.

I’m done with sports.

I saw an article in the Los Angeles Times that like most Los Angeles Times articles was so full of crap the paper ought to just be printed on dung. The print version title was “2 views of gay NBA player.”

Make it ONE view that homosexuality is just neat and one utter mischaracterization of the despised view that it’s even possible there could be anything wrong with it.

Anyway, the two quotes from this piece of propaganda gibberish representing the “two views” are as follows:

“We have a lot less tolerance for people who make reactionary statements like Mr. Broussard,” Hilliard said, referring to ESPN television commentator Chris Broussard, who said Monday that, because of his religious beliefs, he did not condone homosexuality.

And let’s not omit the “Christian” view (at least “Christian” according to the Los Angeles Times:

All but one player agreed. “I’m a Christian,” said 17-year-old Jordan Bryant. “But I also feel that God created you to be what you can be. If He created you with an intent to like another male, then that is what you were created to be.”

Well, let’s first think about what Hilliard said. If you have religious beliefs that in any way prevent you from celebrating sodomy, you are making “reactionary statements.”

Since when? You know, given the fact that there was not ONE SINGLE CIVILIZATION IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY that embraced homosexuality. You know, given the entirety of Western Civilization, upon which our own culture comes from, which specifically CONDEMNS homosexuality. And, you know, given the thousands of years of Judeo-Christian tradition that our society is similarly based upon.

When did it become cool to describe Moses and St. Paul as “reactionary”???

How did the militant homosexual agenda that has been gaining ground for something like the last twenty years suddenly erase all previous human history???

And how did the militant homosexual agenda somehow sneak past even the Darwinian evolutionary view that homosexuality represents a complete dead-end for any species which embraces it???

It is frankly amazing.

And now let me turn to the words of this idiot named Jordan Bryant who has the moral idiocy to say “I’m a Christian” followed by a sentiment that comes right out of the place that God famously vaporized for wickedness.

When did what the Bible clearly and emphatically states become irrelevant to “Christianity”???

Leviticus 18:22 – “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”

Leviticus 20:13 – “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

Romans 1:26-27 – “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 – “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

I’m going to be – in Kobe Bryant’s words – “ignorant” on this subject. I’m going to side with God and let the rest of culture be damned.

What is the saddest thing of all is that most people who call themselves “Christians” are nearly as ignorant – and they truly ARE “ignorant” – as that 17-year-old Jordan Bryant idiot. The Bible tells us NOT to participate in the world, the flesh and the devil. But we’ve dived in and immersed ourselves in it.

We ought to be BOYCOTTINGit.

Instead, the only ones who do any actual boycotting are the left who boycott anything that DOESN’T represent the world, the flesh and the devil.

As for me, I am done watching professional sports. ALL of them.

This is the culture just before the coming of the beast. Soon, the world will be worshiping him and accepting his mark on their right hands or on their foreheads.

And I’ll be in heaven with my “ignorant” Savior watching the world descend into literal hell on earth before the REAL hell comes upon them.

Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow prays after the Broncos defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in overtime in the NFL AFC wildcard playoff football game in Denver, Colorado, January 8, 2012

It would have been more than enough for the polarizing Denver Broncos quarterback to simply lead his underdog team to victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday in the AFC wild-card game. And Tim Tebow did, thanks to his 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime that left the Steelers and the watching world simply stunned.

But then the facts and figures emerged, and the Internet verily exploded: Tebow threw for exactly 316 yards in the 29-23 upset win, presenting an eerie allusion to the Bible’s John 3: 16 passage — whose number Tebow famously wore in the black under his eyes when he led the Florida Gators to victory in the 2009 collegiate national championship game. What’s more, that event took place exactly three years ago on the same day as his latest miracle comeback. And that wasn’t it for the coincidences: Tebow set an NFL playoff record with, you guessed it, 31.6 yards per completion and the TV rating on CBS peaked between 8.00-8.15pm ET with a rating of, say it ain’t so, 31.6.

A cursory glance at Google Trends hot searches Monday morning presented three of a kind: the top trio were, in order, the 3: 16 passage (“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”), followed by Tebow and Tim Tebow.

So Tebowmania is somehow getting bigger. We’ve been down this road before, of course, but surely nothing can match these twin events, right? Could Tebow’s Broncos manage to pull off a win next weekend against the New England Patriots — who not only will be a heavier favorite than the Steelers but also schooled Denver in the regular season? If so, then surely only God (or, to dial back the hyperbole, Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees) will be able to stop Tebow from winning the Super Bowl. For now, he is working in mysterious ways. (Via CNN.)

So Tebow can’t put John 3:16 on his eye black. So instead he passes for 316 yards, sets an NFL playoff record of 31.6 yards per completion (although he clearly can’t throw from what I’ve been repeatedly told), and does it on television for a 31.6 rating.

Get out your probability textbooks and calcuate the odds of that happening, all you liberal math whizzes.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

And thanks to Tim Tebow and a little Something-Something else, that verse is all over the place even though he couldn’t display it.

Update: As is pointed out by Larry and Liz below, there are a couple of other neat things about the Denver victory and “316.” Turns out that the Steeler’s only interception of the game took place on 3rd down and 16 yards to go. And the Broncos’ winning touchdown catch in overtime was caught by Demaryius Thomas – who was born on Christmas.

This stuff is just great.

I have no idea how the Broncos will fare against the Patriots this week, but they already sure have put on a show and I’m one who hopes the show continues over New England.

Update: Well, that one certainly didn’t break Denver’s way. On the bright side, at least Tim Tebow won’t have to ponder over what would have happened had he come through on that one play…

The Denver Bronco season ended with the “repeating 316.” And that’s a pretty good way to end.

If you were hoping for a “come from behind miracle victory,” here’s the best I can do:

In a recent email, I read about a woman named Pam, who knows the pain of
considering abortion. More than 24 years ago, she and her husband Bob were
serving as missionaries to the Philippines and praying for a fifth child.
Pam contracted amoebic dysentery, an infection of the intestine caused by
a parasite found in contaminated food or drink. She went into a coma and
was treated with strong antibiotics before they discovered she was
pregnant.

Doctors urged her to abort the baby for her own safety and told her that
the medicines had caused irreversible damage to her baby. She refused the
abortion and cited her Christian faith as the reason for her hope that her
son would be born without the devastating disabilities physicians
predicted. Pam said the doctors didn’t think of it as a life, they thought
of it as a mass of fetal tissue.

While pregnant, Pam nearly lost their baby four times but refused to
consider abortion. She recalled making a pledge to God with her husband:
If you will give us a son, we’ll name him Timothy and we’ll make him a
preacher.

Pam ultimately spent the last two months of her pregnancy in bed and
eventually gave birth to a healthy baby boy August 14, 1987. Pam’s
youngest son is indeed a preacher. He preaches in prisons, makes hospital
visits, and serves with his father’s ministry in the Philippines. He also
plays football. Pam’s son is Tim Tebow.

I don’t write this with the intent of attacking the recently deceased, but rather to underscore a point that occurred to me as I scanned through an LA Times op-ed by liberal Meghan Daum. Her piece began:

As fans of the late Christopher Hitchens cycle through the five stages of grief, it’s interesting to see which of his opinions can still inspire the kind of anger that is unlikely to ever fade into acceptance. There are, of course, the obvious candidates: his characterization of Bill Clinton as “a rapist” or his vilification of Mother Teresa as “a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud.” There is also his oh so chivalrous shout-out to the Dixie Chicks, whom he called “fat slugs” (or “slags” or “sluts” depending on your source) despite later admitting “having not the least idea of what any of them looked like.”

I actually hadn’t realized that Christopher Hitchens was such an equal-opportunity hater. I mean, I thought he just hated religious or Christian people like me.

This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just “people of faith” but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.

And I was thinking, “So it wasn’t just Christians and religion in general he dumped hate on.

And a frankly irrational anger and a determination to impose an agenda by force rather than by consent were the scope of both pieces.

In the immediately above piece, Hitchens is quoted:

“How can we ever know how many children had their psychological and physical lives irreparably maimed by the compulsory inculcation of faith? Religion … has always hoped to practice upon the unformed and undefended minds of the young… If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.”

Ah, if we could just forcibly remove the children of those Christians and those religious nutjobs and allow the state to indoctrinate them instead, you know, like the Soviet Union or North Korea, imagine what a “different world” we could have.

It occurred to me to wonder how many hateful and vicious quotes came from the mouth or pen of Christopher Hitchens’ most obvious counterpart, Billy Graham?

I found Billy Graham saying the following despicable thing about Bill Clinton:

Oops, I’m sorry. Billy didn’t actually say anything hateful about Bill Clinton. I’m sure it was only because they were both “Bills” rather than that Billy Graham isn’t hateful, though.

Oops, Billy Graham didn’t say anything hateful about ANY Democrat candidate for president, let descriptions such as “fanatic,” “boastful,” “ignoramus,” as “those who despise science and learning,” as “morally and intellectually slothful people,” “who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured,” as “theocratic bullies,” and as “wickedness and stupidity.”

I mean, the sheer tolerance of Christopher Hitchens as compared to Billy Graham is really something.

I mean, maybe I’ve been wrong about which side is so really intolerant.

I did find an article from an atheist entitled, “Dear Billy Graham: You’re A Hateful Bigot,” but if you click on that hoping for ammo against Rev. Billy, you won’t get very much. Billy’s most hateful quote, the pièce de résistance, was:

Only God can give us the moral and spiritual foundation we need for our lives. This is why the most important step you can take is to turn to Jesus Christ and commit your life to him. When you do, God will forgive your sins and make you his child forever. He also promises to be with you in the future. By a simple prayer of faith ask him to come into your life today.

“God’s not unjust, he doesn’t actually exist. We’ve been deceived. If God existed, he’d have made the world more just… I’ll lend you a book and you’ll see.”

Mao Tse Tung was an atheist who was rather famous for his care for the poor and the little people:

“Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people. If they stand up and dig together with us, why can’t these two mountains be cleared away?” [Mao Tse Tung, Little Red Book, “Self-Reliance and Arduous Struggle chapter 21″].

You gotta love the comparison between these great leaders of their respective movements. I mean, Jesus said ugly things like:

“But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” — Matthew 5:39

“But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” — Mathew 5:44-45

“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” — Matthew 26:52

Just naked hate from that Jesus Bigot, I know. I can only apologize for having repeated His dark and evil teachings.

“The atom bomb is nothing to be afraid of,” Mao told Nehru, “China has many people. . . . The deaths of ten or twenty million people is nothing to be afraid of.” A witness said Nehru showed shock. Later, speaking in Moscow, Mao displayed yet more generosity: he boasted that he was willing to lose 300 million people, half of China’s population.” [Annie Dillard, “The Wreck of Time” in Harper’s from January 1998].

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, in tooting his own horn as loudly as he knows how, boasts that he is the winner of the Rockover Award (which just so happens to be “the highest honor in Jewish journalism,” by the way). And his columb appears regularly in New York Jewish Week.

Here is his latest and greatest wise musing:

“If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants. While America has become more inclusive since Jerry Falwell’s first political forays, a Tebow triumph could set those efforts back considerably.”

I mean, you could literally sing those lyrics to the tune, “If Hitler hadn’t killed six million Jews, the world would have been a much worse place.”

The hatemongering continued until it was revealed that Bristol was herself pregnant – and that it was therefore biologically impossible that she could have been pregnant with Trig. At which time the Daily Kos purged their site. They didn’t apologize, they just slunk away like the despicable and vile cowards that they have always been.

When the going gets tough, you can always trust liberals to change their story. Unless they can delete it and claim they never said it to begin with.

You would think of ALL people, Jews would have learned the lesson about such hateful demonization.

You would also think that a rabbi who says that Christians are so damn intolerant and hateful would think about how hypocritical he was being when he made such a despicable statement. He literally singles Tim Tebow out – whom I’m willing to bet has never said a hateful thing about Jews or about burning mosques in his life – and attributes fanatical and deragened hate to him and to those who root for him.

But not this Jew. And not most liberal Jews for that matter – who continue to vote for Democrats and vote for the most profoundly anti-Israel president in American history.

Norman Podhoretz writes a thoroughly-researched book in which we find him “maintaining that Democratic attitudes toward Israel range from unsympathetic to passionately hostile while the Republicans, with some exceptions, have been solidly to fervently supportive since the end of the 1967 Six-Day War.”

A review of Podhoretz’s book, “Why Jews Are Liberals” has this to say:

Yet, in terms of Israel support, there were reasons to think 2008 would be a good year for the GOP. John McCain’s long history of sympathy with Israel should have given him an advantage over Barack Hussein Obama, whose history consisted of associating with enemies of the Jewish state like the unapologetic bigot Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Nevertheless, proving Pod’s assertion that Statist “Jews” have not cared about Israel/Judaism for decades, Obama beat Mr. McCain among Jewish voters by roughly a 70-30 ratio. Obama did far better with Jews than with any other ethnic/religious group, sans blacks, and Podhorertz relays some stats:

The Jewish vote for him was 25 points higher than the 53% he scored with the electorate as a whole; 35 points higher than the 43% he scored with whites; 11 points higher than the 67% he scored with Hispanics; 33 points higher than the 45% he scored with Protestants; and 24 points higher than the 54% he scored with Catholics.

In his closing paragraphs, Podhoretz clarifies a final time:

“The social, political and moral system that liberals wish to transform is the very system in and through which Jews found a home such as they had never discovered in all their forced wanderings tyhroughout the centuries over the face of the earth.”

We fundamentalist Christians – unlike liberal Jews – stand strongly besides Israel and we vow to stand WITH Israel. Even to our own hurt. And the interesting thing is that this uberliberal rabbi implicitly affirms that. It’s not Jews that we’re going to target if Tebot wins the Super Bowl; no sir, we’re going to burn down all the mosques and target every single immigrant BUT Jews.

At suppose that’s an improvement from this hypocrite hater; he could have accused us of hating on Jews, too.

I use the term “Judeo-Christian” to understand my faith. I believe that Messiah Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament and said that every jot and tittle of it would ultimately be fulfilled. That means that there is a place for Jews and a place for national Israel in God’s kingdom. And with my fellow evangelical Christians, I eagerly wait to see that day when God brings all of His people together. And I continue to stand up in vocal support of the state of Israel and call for America to defend God’s chosen people against her mortal enemies until that blessed day the prophets anticipated comes to pass.

That faith is far stronger than Rabbi Joshua Hammerman’s hate and bigotry. So my attitude toward Israel and toward faithful Jews does not change so much as a single degree.

“The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. Men gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done” — Revelation 16:10-11

Imagine for a second, the Denver Broncos quarterback is a devout follower of Islam, sincere and principled in his beliefs and thus bowed toward Mecca to celebrate touchdowns. Now imagine if Detroit Lions players Stephen Tulloch and Tony Schefflermockingly bowed towards Mecca, too, after tackling him for a loss or scoring a touchdown, just like what happened Sunday.

I know what would happen. All hell would break loose.

Stinging indictments issued by sports columnists. At least a few outraged religious leaders chiming in on his behalf. Depending on what else had happened that day, they might have a chance at becoming Keith Olbermann’s Worst Person In The World.

And there would be apologies. Oh Lord, would there be apologies — by players, by coaches, possibly by ownership with a tiny chance of a statement from NFL commish Roger Goodell.

You cannot mock Muslim faith, not in this country, not anywhere really.

It is primarily a respect issue, because religion is sacred and should be off limits. Yet when Tulloch and Scheffler dropped to a knee to mock how Tebow prays — an action known as “Tebowing” that has gone viral in the public too — we yawned and told Christians to lighten up. We blamed Tebow for making a show of honoring God rather than himself in moments of joy. We excused them because Tulloch said he was mocking Tebowing, not God.

Tim Tebow has been the butt of many jokes, on and off the field.Joe Mahoney

Because ridiculing a man who chooses to honor God is so much better, right?

His religious fervor is an easy target for the vitriol spewed from those who dislike him, but the reasons are much deeper than that. From his advocacy of abstinence to his infamous “You will never see another team play this hard” speech at Florida, it is like he is too good to be true. He is too nice, and thereby we want him to trip up so we can feel better. We want him to be revealed as a hypocrite, and when that fails to happen, we settle for gleefully celebrating his failures on the football field. And why? Because he dares to say thanks?

I keep telling myself I am done with this Tebow debate only to be drawn offside, this time by a Lions player I had never heard of and a viral web meme that sprouted this week that had fans flooding an ESPN story’s comments section with viciously funny, yet downright mean and very sacrilegious quips of the “X > Tebow” formula.

What this whole repeating cycle of Tebow — rip his game, mock his faith, rise to his defense, repeat — has revealed about religious discourse in America is ugly. We have become so enamored of politically correct dogma that we protect every minority from even the slightest blush of insensitivity while letting the very institutions that the majority holds dear to be ridiculed. And this defense that Tebow invites such scrutiny with his willingness to publicly live as he privately believes calls into question what exactly it is we value.

One of the things Boomer Esiason got right in his vicious takedown on Tebow as a quarterback on a radio show earlier this week was how personal the criticism is. A good many NFL players and fans seem to be rooting for this guy to be a massive failure.

I could not figure out what was causing this onslaught of venom for a guy almost everybody claims to like, and I finally decided it is more about us. He makes us uncomfortable. He is a reminder that the blue-red, liberal-conservative fight over taking God out of everyday life is intellectually dishonest. He is too good.

Tebow is proof that God goes comfortably into whatever arena of your life you wish to take Him. I used to work with a great guy, Simon Gonzalez, a very devout Christian, and he prayed before every meal. Others would be killing free press meals and he would stop, bow his head and silently say thanks. He was not making a spectacle of his beliefs. He believed that God deserved thanks for what was before him, and not just when convenient for Simon. And people would squirm — not because what he was doing was wrong, but because it was right. It is the same for Tebow.

There is no organized prayer led by Goodell before every game and no mandate for a post-touchdown prayer. Players such as Tebow — and he certainly is not alone in his belief and faith in the league — do so because consciences request it.

That others chose to mock — and Tulloch is in good company with many journalists I call friends and web posters with a wicked sense of humor — reminds me very much of the final line of The Paradoxical Commandments so often attributed to Mother Teresa. “You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway.”

And everybody is getting dropped in the grease on this one.

The defenses of Tebow, by Christians, are so ugly it defeats the point. This is where Christianity so often loses people, the ardent preaching of the gospel of “I’m Right, You’re Wrong” and the demand for tolerance and the unwillingness to grant it. Because if Tebow were Muslim and did celebrate by bowing to Mecca, that would deserve respect too. Same for a Jewish player, yet why do I see that blowing up into an ugly mess as well? The level of discourse about religion in this country is frankly embarrassing, a bastard child of political discourse.

The only one who looks good in all this — maybe too good for some — is Tebow.

I find it especially telling that Tebow rarely lectures and does not fight back. He did not create Tebowing, nor is he responsible for it blowing up hipster style. It was kind of cool, I thought, after hearing a kid had said he was “Tebowing” while getting chemo.

He is just a guy with the good sense to say thanks. Instead of taking his cue, we mock his faith.

Bring it on, God. Do your worst to us. Make it hot and dry or freezing and wet. Send us earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes. Take away our economy. Undermine us everywhere at everything. What used to be the most blessed and most prosperous and most Christian nation on the planet is now defying You at every turn.

America is the baby-murdering land that we love that pats itself on the back for exterminating 54 million innocent human babies in the abortion mills.